


Concert in the Air

by komorebirei, mireille (komorebirei)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Blushing idiots, Chat Noir with a Guitar, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Friendship, LadyNoir - Freeform, Music, Romance, Serenade, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24317800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/komorebirei/pseuds/komorebirei, https://archiveofourown.org/users/komorebirei/pseuds/mireille
Summary: “What is that, a lute?” she demands, arms crossed.The huge grin on Chat’s face vanishes when he sees her expression, and he shifts the narrow instrument behind his back. “It’s a guitar. I can explain!”Ladybug narrows her eyes. It doesn’t look like a guitar, but she willnotlet him tempt her into expressing her curiosity. “If your explanation doesn’t contain information about where the akuma is and what you know about it, I don’t want to hear it.”Or, Chat tricks Ladybug into listening to an impromptu concert in the air.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 17
Kudos: 114





	Concert in the Air

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emsylcatac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emsylcatac/gifts).



> Hello! Yesterday was the sweet and talented Emsy's birthday! I'm so sorry this is late, but I hope it makes you smile!
> 
> Also, I'm sorry in advance for my lame attempt at French puns. ^^;;

**mr. annoying:** BN, meet me at the Eiffel Tower in ten minutes!!!!

Marinette scrunches her brow, trying to decide what to make of the message on her screen, sent through the messaging app she only uses with Chat Noir in case they need to contact each other as civilians. The exclamation points indicate urgency, but she hasn’t seen or heard any signs of an akuma.

‘BN,’ of course, means ‘Buguinette,’ the abbreviation Chat has been using since she admonished him not to text anything that could be connected to their superhero identities.

 _‘Is there an akuma?’_ Marinette texts back, though she doesn’t expect an answer—ten minutes isn’t much time, and he might have already transformed. _He really is annoying,_ she grumbles in her mind. _Would it kill him to include a bit of an explanation?_

A quick Google search reveals nothing about a present disaster. Either Chat happened to be in the right place at the right time and knows something the rest of Paris doesn’t, or he’s pulling a prank on her.

Unfortunately, for the city’s sake, she can’t afford to be too skeptical.

Sighing, she sets her phone aside and finishes up the seam she was in the middle of sewing when she heard the message notification. Taking her foot off the pedal, she snips the thread, removes the half-finished skirt from under the foot, and sets her sewing project aside.

“Tikki,” she calls out.

Tikki emerges from wherever she’s been hiding, piping an exuberant, “Yes, Marinette?”

Marinette stands from her chair. “Chat wants us to come to the Eiffel Tower now. Do you think there’s an akuma?”

“Maybe,” Tikki says inconclusively. “But it’s your duty to go and check it out!”

“Yes, I guess you’re right.” Marinette rolls her eyes in frustration at Chat’s vagueness and glances at her phone one last time in hopes that he’s texted her back, to no avail. “Ready?”

“Whenever you are, Marinette!”

“Tikki, spots on!”

—

Ladybug is vigilant for signs of distress as she swings her way to the Eiffel Tower, but she notices nothing out of the ordinary. The sun is out, and plenty of civilians are out on the Champ de Mars, strolling and lounging. By the time she joins her partner at their usual Meeting Spot above the second platform, she is thoroughly miffed, and her anger only grows when she notices what he’s holding in his hands when he stands to greet her.

“What is that, a lute?” she demands, arms crossed.

The huge grin on Chat’s face vanishes when he sees her expression, and he shifts the narrow instrument behind his back. “It’s a guitar. I can explain!”

Ladybug narrows her eyes. It doesn’t look like a guitar, but she will _not_ let him tempt her into expressing her curiosity. “If your explanation doesn’t contain information about where the akuma is and what you know about it, I don’t want to hear it.”

“There’s no akuma. But please, hear me out!” Chat raises his free hand as Ladybug opens her mouth, in an attempt to keep her protestations at bay.

“Fine.” Ladybug shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “Though I can’t guarantee that I won’t leave as soon as you’re done talking.”

“Oh, _ma Lady,_ you underestimate how long I can talk.” Chat grins.

Ladybug gives him a deadpan look, then uncrosses her arms to reach for her yo-yo.

“No!” Chat cries. “Okay, I’m sorry for being cheeky and for abusing the texting app to summon you when there wasn’t an akuma.”

“What if I’d been in the middle of something important, Chat?” Ladybug explodes. “Like a funeral or a wedding? Or—or an interview? When you tell me to come without any explanation, I _have_ to assume there’s something terribly wrong and drop everything and come. There’s a reason I told _only_ to use the app for emergencies! Next time, you could at _least_ explain what you want me for, so I can decide if it’s really worth it, or if you could afford to wait a few minutes for me to finish what I’m doing.”

“Sorry,” Chat mumbles, ears and tail drooping.

He doesn’t say anything more, and Ladybug doesn’t have it in her to leave him there looking so dejected.

“I’m sorry for ranting,” Ladybug says, relaxing shoulders she didn’t realize were so tense. She takes a deep breath. “So, what did you call me for?”

Chat’s face lifts, hopeful. Finding Ladybug’s expression bereft of any more traces of anger, he launches into an excited explanation. “Well, my friend has been giving me guitar lessons, and I finally learned my first song today! It’s nothing too complicated, but I really wanted to play for someone!”

Ladybug shakes her head, mostly in exasperation but with a touch of reluctant fondness. “Why didn’t you play for your friend, then?”

“I, um…” Chat’s gaze skitters to the side as he tries to think of an excuse that doesn’t sound pathetic, but eventually he goes with the truth. “I wasn’t allowed out. And plus, I wanted to play for _you.”_

The slight teasing lift at the corner of Ladybug’s mouth fades, and she takes a seat at the edge of the beam. “Okay, let me hear the song, then,” she says softly, patting the spot next to her.

Chat lowers himself beside her and props the odd, skinny guitar on his lap. It has a long, trapezoidal body that looks like a normal guitar with the usual curved sides cut off. The whole thing is shaped vaguely like a canoe paddle.

A cedar smell drifts into Ladybug’s nostrils, which she assumes is coming from the wood of the instrument. “How is that a guitar, anyway?” she asks.

“It’s called a backpacker guitar,” Chat explains. “My friend lent it to me. It’s much easier to sneak it in and out of the house—and to jump on rooftops with, but he doesn’t know that, of course.”

Ladybug tries not to take note of the fact that Chat has to sneak his guitar in and out of the house, but it’s a glaring detail about his private life that she knows she won’t forget. “I like how it smells,” she says with a smile, then teases, “I’m ready to hear if you can make it sound as good.”

 _“Prep-oreilles_ for a treat, then.” Chat places his fingers on the frets.

Leaning toward him with interest, Ladybug notices something different about his left hand. “Your claws! They’re gone.”

“Yeah—I imagined the suit without them before I transformed this time. They make it a little hard to play the guitar.” He pauses for a moment, then asks, “Can you do me a favor and close your eyes, Buguinette?”

“Hmm? Why?”

“I’m just learning, so… I’m a bit nervous, and I might mess up if you’re watching.” He rakes his hair back with his right hand, but it immediately falls right back across his forehead in an unruly mess.

“The illustrious Chat Noir? Nervous?” Ladybug chuckles, but she indulges him and closes her eyes.

A few seconds of anticipation pass before the gentle strumming of chords intermingles with the muffled hullabaloo of tourists on the deck below. Ladybug’s lips stretch into a smile, and she lets her head sway slightly as she listens.

She didn’t have high expectations when Chat said he had just started learning. At first, the meter is hard to follow as he pauses between fingerings, but a few bars in, it actually starts sounding like a song. An odd chord twangs, and Chat mutters something in displeasure before picking up again. There is some buzzing, some loud sliding across frets, but he doesn’t sound half bad.

After the opening chord progression resolves, a warm tenor voice joins in with the strumming. Ladybug is so surprised, she _almost_ opens her eyes. First of all, she had no idea Chat Noir could sing so well. She’s so impressed by the smooth quality of his voice, and how effortlessly he hits the notes, that she doesn’t even notice until later that the lyrics aren’t in French.

It sounds like… English? Ladybug does fairly well in English class, but she’s always needed to look up English lyrics to understand them. She only catches a few words here and there— _hands, satisfied, illuminate._ At the end of the second verse, the tempo of his singing slows down significantly as Chat stumbles through a quick series of chord changes.

“Sorry, _ma Lady,_ that part is still a little rough,” Chat laughs, bringing Ladybug out of her trance and reminding her that she’s sitting on the Eiffel Tower with her partner.

She opens her eyes, and his chords peter out self-consciously. “Oh, sorry,” she says, shutting her eyes again. “Keep going, Chaton! You’re doing great, really!”

“No, no, that’s all I have,” Chat says, and there’s a hollow clatter as he sets the instrument on the beam behind him. “I don’t remember the rest of the lyrics.”

He’s lying—he’s memorized the whole song, intending all along to serenade Ladybug, but he feels suddenly embarrassed by his clumsy playing.

Ladybug opens her eyes again and beams at her partner. “That sounded really good, Chat!”

“I know it didn’t, but thanks anyway, Bug,” Chat murmurs, rubbing his neck sheepishly.

“No, it really did!” Ladybug says emphatically. It may not be album-quality, but she is sincerely impressed. “Your playing sounded really… good! Especially for a beginner! And I had no idea you could sing so well!”

She regrets qualifying her praise when she sees a grimace cross Chat’s features.

“I’ll practice more and let you hear the whole song next time,” Chat says with a small smile. “But thanks for taking the time to listen, Buguinette. It means a lot to me.”

Ladybug doesn’t know if it’s his sudden self-deprecating bashfulness, the lack of overexaggerated charisma saturating his sincere words, or the warm tinge on his cheeks, but she’s suddenly finding it difficult to meet his eyes. She glances aside at his guitar. _Maybe he cast a spell on you with his siren song,_ a cheeky voice in her mind suggests, but she shoves the thought aside. Ridiculous.

“Of course, Chaton, I’d listen to you anytime.” As Ladybug says the words, she recalls the fact that she was angry with Chat Noir when she arrived, and was on the verge of walking out on him—that the last thing she intended to do was let him play for her. Shame burns her cheeks as she realizes she’s just told a blatant lie, and Chat knows it.

He says nothing about it, though, and out of her peripheral vision, his gentle expression doesn’t seem to have changed.

“Sorry,” Ladybug blurts out, unsure if Chat is even aware of what she’s apologizing for.

“What are you sorry about?” Chat’s tone is puzzled, as if he can’t fathom a possible answer.

Ladybug looks up and opens her mouth, but she doesn’t feel brave enough to openly acknowledge her misdeeds, so she asks a question instead. “What were the lyrics about?”

“I was hoping you’d ask!” Chat brightens, regaining some of the dramatic bounce that he usually has. “It’s a love song—about how the singer would follow his loved one anywhere, even to death. Whether to heaven or to hell—or neither—it wouldn’t matter, he would not leave her side. ‘[I will follow you into the dark](https://youtu.be/NDHY1D0tKRA),’ is the title… and of course, today, the singer is _me._ That’s how I feel about you, _ma Lady.”_

Ladybug blushes. It was a light and cheerful-sounding melody, she didn’t expect the meaning to be so heavy. “Um… thank you, Chat, but I don’t want you to die for me,” she mumbles. More blood pools in her cheeks as she realizes that isn’t _quite_ what he said the song was about, but it’s too late to retract her words.

“You know I would,” Chat says without missing a beat.

Ladybug knows he would, but it isn’t something she wants to acknowledge or condone, and facing it is uncomfortable. She wants to change the topic, but he deserves better. He deserves _everything._ She gazes out at the horizon again, probing the crevices of her mind for something worthy to say, but the weight of his words seems to have knocked sense out of her. Every moment that passes makes her feel like _whatever_ comes out of her mouth will sound too trite or insincere.

“Anyway, I didn’t mean to bring down the mood!” Chat laughs, mercifully dispelling the tension in the air.

Ladybug feels the buzz of anxiety leave her system and begins to breathe more easily. “It’s okay, you didn’t,” she says weakly, shifting her eyes back onto him.

Leaning away from Ladybug, Chat grabs a rectangular, black cloth case from where it was wedged between two beams and unzips it. “I know you’re busy, so I won’t keep you any longer, but thank you again for coming to my impromptu conc _-air_. Or, I suppose we could call it a s- _air_ -énade?”

Ladybug snorts. “Did you just make not one, but _two—”_

“You know it, _ma Lady.”_ Chat flashes one of his signature grins and winks.

Ladybug giggles.

Wait—since when does she _giggle_ at Chat Noir’s puns? Letting her mirth fade, she watches Chat put away his guitar.

His eyes flick up as he finishes zipping up the case, and when he meets her eyes, he smiles in a gentle way that reminds her of his demeanor after he’d finished playing. Unwittingly, her chest twinges as if his gaze has brushed against her heart.

Shrugging on the case like a backpack, Chat stands and holds a hand out to Ladybug. As she gets to her feet, he brushes a kiss across her knuckles as usual. “Until later, _ma Lady.”_

He begins to retract his fingers, but instead of letting his hand fall away, Ladybug squeezes his fingers and tugs his hand closer, using the momentum to tiptoe and plant a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you, Chaton,” she whispers as she pulls away.

Even the mask cannot hide the crimson stain that spills across his cheeks as he breaks into a gleeful smile. “For what, my sweet Buguinette?”

She had a response prepared in case he asked, but all coherent thoughts fly out of her mind at his sickeningly romantic way of addressing her. “For—for just being—you! Na Choir. Um, Chat Noir! Yes. You’re a good partner.”

She pats him on the head, dying inside, and pulls her hand away before she can find out if he’s purring.

Which, for some reason, she really wants to do, but— _no._

“Thank you,” he breathes, looking far too cute for her to handle. “You are, too.”

“I’ve gotta go now!” she cries abruptly, picking up her yo-yo and leap-swinging out of there in a blind panic.

She’s a significant distance away before she calms down enough to pause and look back. He’s barely larger than a speck, but Chat Noir is still standing there in the same spot as if paralyzed. Slowly, she lifts a hand to wave, and sees the faint flicker of him waving back.

 _Oh no,_ she thinks as her pulse speeds noticeably. _I’m doomed._

She breaks into a mad sprint to burn off the energy suddenly thrumming in her veins.

_Such an annoying kitty!_

**Author's Note:**

> References:
> 
> -[Backpacker Guitar](https://www.google.com/search?q=backpacker+guitar&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS853US853&sxsrf=ALeKk01bRkKWg7Q4lF91TW_iISHRhsEcHA:1590130208705&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjn6_HR8MbpAhWYlXIEHfECC4wQ_AUoAnoECA0QBA&biw=1875&bih=1072)  
> -"The illustrious Chat Noir" was inspired by [this ML-version](https://thegentlehoneybee.tumblr.com/post/155972754143/finally-updated-the-vintage-ladybug-and-chat-noir) of the [vintage Chat Noir poster](https://www.google.com/search?q=le+chat+noir+poster&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwj-sdzQ7MbpAhWvVt8KHXjhAXsQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=le+chat+noir+poster&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzICCAAyAggAMgYIABAFEB4yBggAEAUQHjIECAAQGDIECAAQGDoECCMQJzoECAAQQzoECAAQHjoGCAAQCBAeUMe2AVipwgFgocMBaABwAHgAgAFYiAGaCZIBAjE5mAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWc&sclient=img&ei=7HHHXv6LH6-t_Qb4wofYBw&bih=1072&biw=1875&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS853US853) by Théophile Steinlen.  
> -[I'll Follow You Into the Dark](https://youtu.be/NDHY1D0tKRA) (Death Cab for Cutie) - this is the song Chat sings.
> 
> Explanation of French puns:
> 
>  _Conc-air_  
>  "Concert" and "air" are the same in French, but the "-ert" part of concert sounds more like "air" than it does in English, so this pun is more subtle in French. (No need to explain _s-air-énade,_ methinks.)
> 
>  _“Prep-oreilles for a treat, then.”_  
>  Préparez (prepare) + oreilles (ears). In other words, "Prepare your ears for a treat." I know Chat would probably say "prépare" and not "préparez" to Ladybug but anything is permissible for the sake of a pun, right?? :P
> 
> (Emsy, I'm sorry. You make so much effort to make English puns so I figured I would try to make some dumb French puns. XD Please tell me if I made a mistake, my French sucks!)


End file.
